Edited Photos

These are Mengyang's photos. 

http://mengyangcomm3530.blogspot.com/

Feature News: West Cove Apartments

FEATURE - If you ever find yourself driving on Tabernacle a particular empty lot will allow you to see St. George's corneal ulcer. In other words, the eyesore of the condemned West Cove Apartments.

The West Cove Apartments, located at 300 West 132 South in Downtown St. George, were built in 1942 and are made up of eight, one bedroom/one bathroom, apartments divided into two buildings which sits on a 0.39 acre lot.  The storage units in the back are not included within the property's acres but there is a gravel pathway that connects the two buildings to the storage units which are still in use to this day.

From first glance, it is very apparent that this property is a ghost town. There are no cars parked on the lot, nor any sign of a proud homeowners personal touch of a garden gnome - or any exterior decoration for that matter. Instead this vacant lot has been decorated with a touch of trash. 

It is also obvious that the owner of the property has no time for yard work. The trees have dead branches that need to be trimmed in order to promote a healthier tree and the grass is mostly overgrown, if not dead. The overall landscaping is uncared for and only makes the property look even more deserted. 

If the uncared for landscaping doesn't say "eyesore" then maybe the fact that most of the doors and all of the windows have been boarded shut will at least say "ew." In Chicago, Detroit or New York City boarded doors and windows might be a normal thing to see in the ghetto parts of town. Then again, in those towns seeing graffiti is also pretty normal to them. However, the residents of St. George frown upon graffiti and see to it that it is removed immediately. 

In October of 2011 locals began to express their complaints about the unattractiveness and impractical purpose of the West Cove Apartments. According to St. George News, neighbors to the property have witnessed homeless people staying the night, adolescents using the property to host drug parties and people trying to break into the storage units. 

"In 2008, the police department responded to six criminal mischief, nuisance or trespassing calls to that location. In 2009, that number increased and so far, in 2011, it has doubled" reads a St. George News article titled Residents: Clean up condemned West Cove Apartments. 

A year and three months later St. George News posted another article regarding the West Cove Apartments titled Condemned apartments continue to prove a nuisance. In that article there is a quote from Marc Mortensen, City of St. George assistant city manager, saying "You can’t blame the citizens for wanting the property gone," he said. "(The apartments) have been a continual problem." The news article goes on to explain that though there is no money in the budget to tear the apartments down and police having been stopping as much crime in that area as possible. 

According to PropertyShark.com the buildings are valued at $1,500 and the land is presumed to be worth $100,000. 

The following shots are for you, Eric. 

Hard News: Homeschooling Kids

Okay. So I took some new photos for my hard news subject of homeschooling. 

This is the Waldrop family. They are real homeschoolers. Except they're all posing for me in my house. Each plays a specific role. Everything is dramatized. 

I like the strong line vectors in this photo with the pointing finger and the video game kid's eyes. 

In this photo Mrs. Waldrop is playing the role of our State's legislation by not caring about her kids' grades while ignoring them and talking on the phone. The kid doing math homework plays the role of kids who want to be homeschooled and who want to learn. He addresses the camera with hope. The video game kid plays the role of kids who don't like doing homework and would rather waste their life away playing video games. 

Math homework kid is trying to tattle tale on video game kid but the State doesn't care. 

Math homework kid is saying "you're a waste of space" but video game kid and the State mind their own business. 

Math homework kid is jealous that he's the only one who cares about education around here.

Two extra photos shot with a 1.7 f-stop. 

Modern Day Home-Schooling

OPINION - "Don't forget your school books!" my mother would yell as I would pack my bags for yet another road trip. Wouldn't any mother say that to her child just before leaving for a week-long trip in the middle of the school year? I assume that would be pretty normal but I, however, don't exactly know what normal is anymore. Nor did I grow up knowing what so-called "normal" kids would pack when taking week-long field trips.

That's not the point I'm trying to make here. Growing up, I didn't get to throw my school papers over my shoulder and casually walk out of the public school saying "I'm out" like I imagine public school kids would do when their parents excused them from school for a week. Even if I threw my papers over my shoulder like some sort of badass I wouldn't get very far with it because once I walk out into the front yard I have to go back inside and pick up my papers because I have chores. You see, I never got excused from school because I was home-schooled from 1999 to 2007. No matter where my parents dragged me I would have school work because they made home-schooling pretty mobile.

Being home-schooled has its pros and cons. The typical ones being that it's a good thing to be ahead of the national average and it's safer to be in a home setting. But there's also those social skills and lack of friends that every home-schooled kid seems to be bullied with by our national average. Is it because the average kid is jealous that the home-schooled kid is smarter? Or jealous that the home-schooled kid gets to sit in their pajamas all day and play video games for recess? I am guilty of sitting in my pajamas all day and I have developed a lack of personal hygiene over the years. …I don't know why I just shared that. Moving on.

I'm a socially awkward home-schooled kid and because of my lack of common public school social studies I have put myself in public schools to understand the national average student. I want to know what this so-called "normal life" is for the everyday public school student.

I'm actually an employee of the Washington County School District and I teach two different subjects in two different schools. I see things from a different perspective, being a teacher, but I can see my elementary school students' desires to play video games instead of doing school work. I asked my students once if they would rather be really dumb and socially lame but get to play video games all day every day or be super smart and really popular but never play a single video game ever. They're fourth and fifth graders at a charter one school. What do you think they would pick?

There used to be a law for home-schoolers where the grades had to be published and sent up to the state so the state can make sure the child is getting an education. In today's modern world, where the whole country seems to be throwing papers over their shoulders, home-schoolers can either sit at home and study for eight hours a day or play video games for eight hours a day and no one would ever know. That's because Utah legislators don't care. They don't care anymore. 

The State of Utah has given us the freedom to slack off but the big responsibility of figuring out how to properly home school a child without a law or regulation. My mother always made sure we double-checked our homework, but never did we have annual testing. Unfortunately, my first two years in college prove that I should have been tested more often. I have been diagnosed with testing anxiety. I don't know how to handle the pressure of being watched and timed while trying to chose the correct answer to prove I understand the content. 

When I would get all of my math homework done and everything was correct the reward was video games. Not an A that would later in life get me a lower interest rate on my loan. As a kid, I didn't care about As. My carrot on a stick was video games. 

Portraits of Jason and Stan

These first two photos of Stan and Jason are bracketed. 

Stan is inside the Holland building with a bit of a Rembrandt effect on his cheek.

Jason is inside the Holland building with a bit of a half-cast look but it was really hard to control the lighting in that room.

The lighting in the Holland building didn't allow for us to pull off any noticeable Rembrandt's or half-casts. These next two images are with indoor lighting but don't have dramatic shadowing.

These next couple of pictures were taken outside. The reflector began to burn our eyes. 

Stan with the reflector. 

Stan with bracketing.

Jason with the reflector.

Jason with bracketing.

The following pictures were taken in the studio. 

Jason looking up, with the camera looking down on him, under some Rembrandt lighting.

Jason looking up, with the camera looking up on him, under some Rembrandt lighting.

Jason looking up, with the camera looking down on him, under some half-cast lighting.

Jason looking up, with the camera looking up on him, under some half-cast lighting.

Stan with some Rembrandt lighting.

Stan looking up, with the camera looking down on him, under some half-cast lighting.

Stan looking up, with the camera looking up on him, under some half-cast lighting.

This next series of photos are before and after glamor shots.

Original

Balanced Color

Soften Skin, Enhanced Eye Color, Reduced Blemishes 

Original 

Balanced Color

Soften Skin, Enhanced Eye Color, Reduced Blemishes

Here's a link to Stan's blog where you can find the portraits of myself: http://stanbeachamcomm3530.blogspot.com/2014/02/portraits.html?m=1

And here's a link to Jason's blog: http://photojournalismcomm.blogspot.com/2014/02/blog-post.html?m=1